Back in the late 90’s, the PlayStation was the undisputed king of RPGs. And at that time, I was very much just getting into RPGs, so it was like a wonderful playground of discovery. Or something. Alas, I was a poor schmuck kid and could hardly afford to buy every game I wanted, and renting 60-hour RPGs was a ludicrous idea, so many were left behind.
One of those games that I very vividly remember wanting to play was Wild Arms, a JRPG that (seemingly) had a bit of a Western flair to it. The Wild West isn’t a common setting for really any video game genres, never mind RPGs, so the uniqueness of it really stuck in my head. It was never an especially popular game, to my knowledge, so none of my friends had played it either.
Fast forward to 2025. I’m randomly browsing the PS1 Classics available on the PS4’s digital store, and I come across not only Wild Arms, but the second and third games in the series as well. Apparently, I’d seen them there before, too, as the first two games were already purchased; I only had to impulse buy the third. I decided that it was finally time to put this thing to bed and installed Wild Arms on my PS5. Then, to my amazement, I actually started playing it roughly two weeks later.
Wild Arms is… it’s not what I expected. There’s a little bit of Western theming -mostly in the main characters’ designs- but it’s largely just your typical swords and sorcery kind of game, with a little bit of sci-fi tossed in because that’s just how JRPGs do. I’m a little disappointed, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not like the lack of cowboys and saloons and varmints and train robberies ruined the experience for me. (Although the PS2 remake does seem to improve on this theming quite a bit.)
My one actual major gripe is that battles are ridiculously slow. I get that Media Vision probably wanted to milk the fancy 3D battle graphics for all they’re worth, but yikes. Attack animations are so long and so slow. Don’t even get me started on magic animations. At least most of the summons are relatively quick? It also doesn’t help that when you’re in a dungeon or forest whatever, the encounter rate is ludicrously high. About halfway through the game, I started trying to run from most battles because it was getting tedious, but you’re very likely to fail running away when you’re up against enemies who aren’t way weaker than your party.
So what’s good about Wild Arms? Probably my favourite part is that you collect tools throughout the game that help you to navigate dungeons and solve puzzles. These are items like bombs, a hookshot, a guitar… it gives the game a bit of a Zelda feel. It’s a pretty unique feature for a JRPG, and honestly, I wish the tools had been integrated into the dungeon design even more. The bombs get used throughout the whole game, and you need to use the hookshot in a few different places, but a lot of the other tools have either one very specific use (roller skates) or are just glorified keys (tear drop). One of them is even completely useless (stopwatch), because it does the exact same thing as leaving and re-entering a room, but slower.
Another great thing about Wild Arms is that it gives you exactly three party members for the entire game. That might sound a bit boring and limited, but it works really well because all three characters have very different abilities in combat, and you build their skills in completely different ways. There are also a couple of dungeons where they split up and you need to use each character to solve puzzles unique to them. You even get to choose which order you want to play their prologue chapters in. It’s fun! I like it! You don’t see that kind of thing all too often. In fact, I can’t think of another game that does that (but surely a handful exist).
Rudy, the “main” character, is sort of your typical all-rounder swordsman. His best stat is his defense, but he has no magic at all and isn’t exceptionally fast or strong. Rudy’s gimmick is that he can use ARMs, which are mythical weapons that can only be used by special persons. This is a fancy way of saying “guns.” Throughout the course of the game, you can collect new guns for Rudy, each with unique attributes which can be upgraded for an exorbitant amount of Gella. I stuck with the default Hand Cannon for three quarters of the game, until I found the much more powerful Phazer. ARMs also each use their own ammo supply, and can be refilled at Inns for cash, or reloaded with (fairly rare) bullet clip items. It’s a nice twist on magic/arts that I don’t really think I’ve seen elsewhere.
Jack is the party’s hardest hitter, and he’s also the fastest of the trio by far. While he does get MP, Jack uses it to fuel Fast Draw sword skills instead of magic. These skills are learned in a variety of ways: sometimes from finding a statue that challenges you to a duel before teaching a skill, sometimes you’ll pick one up from a boss fight, and sometimes Jack will get a flash of inspiration from something completely random, like nearly being crushed in a rockslide. You then need to use the new “Fast Draw hint” a few times in combat before Jack actually figures it out and you get the real skill. Mostly I just fell back on two throughout my playthrough: a high-damage single target attack for bosses and a wide attack to take out goon parties on one fell swoop. Occasionally I’d use Jack’s healing skill in a pinch. You’ll also find “secret sign” items on occasion which, when used, reduce the MP cost of one of Jack’s Fast Draw abilities by one. They’re a very exciting find!
Lastly is Cecilia, who by process of elimination is the magic user. And she uses all the magic. Offensive spells, healing spells, buffs, debuffs, field magic… she’s got it all. How you learn those spells is totally different from anything I’ve ever seen; First you need to find a “crest graph” item, which you can then take to a magic store in any town and trade it in to learn a spell of your choice. Like, you can literally learn any spell you want at any time as long as you’ve got a spare crest graph on hand. And if it turns out you don’t like a spell you picked? Just erase it and choose a new one instead. You can also rename all your spells, which is super cool and somewhat practical, because not all the default names are intuitive to what the spell actually does. About halfway through the game, you’re likely to run into a hidden magic shop that will give you access to an advanced set of spells, some of which are ridiculously powerful.
Summons are actually a little bit like summon materia in Final Fantasy VII, where you have to equip them to your characters, and each one will give you different stat buffs when equipped. However, you can only have one summon assigned to each character. Using them in battle won’t deplete any MP, but it will cost you two bars of your Force meter, which builds up as you attack and take damage. You do have to make a bit of a choice whether summoning is the right move to make, though, as a character’s attack and defense increase the more their Force meter is filled. Maxing it out also puts you in “condition green”, which will heal any status conditions you may have at the time (very helpful for enemies that spam sleep or confusion).
As for the story? It’s all over the place, honestly. And I’m not sure if there are a surprising number of parallels to FFVII, or if all these things are just typical JRPG elements that happen to be represented similarly between the two games. You’ve got a Jenova-like entity from space that kills planets, a lifestream-ish thing that connects the world’s guardians, and a magic girl whose destiny it is to save the world with the help of a magical bauble. While the plot didn’t feel too special, I definitely did appreciate the bond that builds between the three main characters over the course of their adventure. They learn to trust and support each other, and each one has his or her own bit of trauma to overcome through the power of friendship. Again, it’s not spectacularly original, but it’s got heart, and I liked it.
I don’t think that Wild Arms would have materially changed my life if I’d played it back in the 90’s, but I’m certainly glad that I’ve finally gotten around to crossing it off the list. While there are definitely some rough edges, it’s a fun game that’s got enough unique elements to set itself apart from other JRPG franchises. I always worry when I pick up an older game like this that it’ll be generic and boring, but that was not the case at all with Wild Arms. Sure, it didn’t fully deliver on the Wild West theme, but that’s okay, at least it put in a little effort to not just be another run-of-the-mill medieval fantasy.
Because I liked it enough to actually play through to the end and do all the optional dungeons and boss fights (there are a lot!), I think that Wild Arms is quite deserving of the title of TE Game of the Month, February 2025. Huh. I guess that is a thing I’m doing now.